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Cinequest 13 (Feb. 27-Mar. 9, 2003)

THIS YEAR'S PROGRAM:

The 2003 festival (lucky 13) runs from Thursday, Feb. 27-Sunday, Mar. 9.
The festival will screen over 60 feature films in 11 days. The complete
program guide is available online at the Cinequest web site. The
Maverick tributees this year are actors James Woods (Mar. 1), Lupe
Ontiveros (Mar. 5), William H. Macy (Mar. 7), and Val Kilmer (Mar. 9).
The honored directors this year are Stephen Frears (Mar. 4) and Ralph
Bakshi (Mar. 8).

Woods's varied career includes multiple appearances for Oliver Stone
(Salvador, Nixon, Any Given Sunday), Casino
for Martin Scorsese and The Virgin Suicides for Sofia Coppola, a
celebrated self-mocking vocal performance as a motor-mouthed Hades in
Disney's Hercules, noteworthy TV roles in Citizen Cohn,
Promise, and My Name is Bill W. (winning Emmy Awards for
the latter two and a Golden Globe for Promise), and killer roles
in The Onion Field and Ghosts of Mississippi. Woods has
been nominated twice for Academy Awards, as supporting actor for
Ghosts in Mississippi and actor for Salvador. Notorious
for his straight talk, Woods promises to rivetingly hold (kangaroo)
court at San Jose's Fairmont Hotel with moderator Brian Adams, a
familiar veteran of Bay Area media (Valley Scene, KRTY, Silicon Valley
Biz Ink). The conversation begins 7pm on Saturday, March 1.

Texas-born Lupe Ontiveros has gradually established herself as a heroine
of Latino (make that Latina) cinema. Since breaking in in Luis Valdez's
Zoot Suit and Gregory Nava's El Norte, Ontiveros has made
a big impression in over two dozen features, including two with Jack
Nicholson (The Border and As Good As It Gets), My
Family, cult favorite The Goonies, and Selena, as the
pop star's disturbed assassin. In recent years, Ontiveros has carved out
a niche in controversial indie films and edgy mainstream fare, including
Storytelling, Chuck&Buck, Adaptation, and the
somewhat more benign Real Women Have Curves, which the festival
will screen with Ontiveros's chat, at 7pm at San Jose's Camera One
Theater on Mar. 5.

Theatre-trained acting whiz William H. Macy began his career inseparably
associated with his writer-director muse, David Mamet. The two still
work together frequently, but Macy has long since branched out to become
one of America's hardest-working and best character actors, as well as
an increasingly viable leading man. Macy's appearances representing
Mamet include House of Games, Things Change,
Homicide, The Water Engine, Oleanna, Wag the
Dog, and State and Main. But Macy is perhaps best known for
his Oscar-nominated performance as the misbegotten Jerry Lundegaard in
the Coen brothers' Fargo. Macy also lit up Paul Thomas Anderson's
Magnolia and Boogie Nights, Jurassic Park III,
Focus, Mystery Men, Pleasantville, and Air Force
One. On TV, Macy connected with audiences for four seasons on
ER, an extended run on Sports Night with wife Felicity
Huffman, and in his most recent pet project, as a salesman with cerebral
palsy in Door to Door. Macy accepts his award and chats atop the
Fourth Street Garage in downtown San Jose on Mar. 7 at 9pm.

Val Kilmer can't seem to shake his reputation as a difficult, nay,
untameable eccentric. In his discussion Mar. 9 at 1pm at the Fairmont,
Kilmer will have to answer for questionable mainstream fare such as
The Island of Dr. Moreau and The Saint, while collecting
accolades for indelible pop culture snapshots The Doors,
Heat, Top Secret, Real Genius, Willow,
Top Gun, Batman Forever, and True Romance. Other
films include Tombstone, Thunderheart, and The Salton
Sea, qualifying Kilmer as the deadpan utility man of the last twenty
years.

Stephen Frears has long been a favorite of cinephiles as a reliably
intelligent and skilled director. Following his early critical success
with My Beautiful Laundrette, Frears gained a reputation for
capturing the gritty reality of urban life, backed up by subsequent
films Prick Up Your Ears, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, Roddy
Doyle's 'Barrytown Trilogy' entries The Snapper and The
Van, and last year's Liam. But Frears also took off in
Hollywood with a range spanning supreme costume drama Dangerous
Liaisons to Jim Thompson adaptation The Grifters to the
Capraesque Hero, as well as Julia Roberts's off-model Mary
Reilly, western The Hi-Lo Country, and everyone's favorite
modern comedy High Fidelity, based on the Nick Hornby bestseller.
Following a screening of one of his films, Frears will participate in a
discussion and accept his Maverick Award, at the San Jose Repertory
Theatre at 7:30pm on Mar. 4.

Animator Ralph Bakshi has courted controversy and polarized audiences
for decades. Bakshi has been associated with Heckle and Jeckle, Deputy
Dawg, Mighty Mouse, and Spider-Man. Bakshi is best known for animated
features Heavy Traffic, Wizards, Lord of the Rings,
American Pop, but especially the notoriously X-rated Fritz the
Cat. Bakshi also directed the animated/live-action hybrid (and Brad
Pitt vehicle!) Cool World, the Rolling Stones video "Harlem
Shuffle," and Coonskin, the stinging parody of Disney's Song
of the South. Cinequest will screen Coonskin at Bakshi's
discussion and award ceremony on Mar. 8 at the Camera One Theater at
5pm.

CAPSULE REVIEWS:

Expecting (screens 2/28, 3/1, 3/2): Die-hard fans of Whose
Line Is It Anyway? will want to catch this improvised narrative
comedy, which includes Colin Mochrie (and wife Debra McGrath) among its
ensemble. Others may appreciate the life-affirming story of a motley
group united by their love of a central earth goddess, their pregnant
friend Stephanie (Valerie Buhagiar). The film opens with an unusually
explicit love scene with the 8-and-a-half-months pregnant star and moves
on to vivid character comedy nevertheless hampered by its uneven
shapelessness, alternatingly sweet, flat, shrill, and only fleetingly
funny. Mochrie and McGrath make the biggest impressions, as an expectant
maybe-father and the formidable, put-together doctor who attempts to
control everything and everyone. Though wholly predictable,
Expecting is ultimately heartwarming as all petty considerations
get pushed aside to make room for the miracle of life. A toss-up.

Con Man (screens 3/2, 3/3, 3/4 with For Our Man): This
gripping, hour-long doc--produced for Cinemax Reel Life--has major local
interest. It tells the story of "serial imposter" James Hogue, who
initiated his masquerading career when he posed--at age 25--as a
teenager, gaining entry into Palo Alto High School. Immediately, Hogue
became a high school track star, but when too much attention resulted in
a 6-month Utah state prison stint on burglary charges, Hogue found
himself with a bizarre opportunity to start over. Under false pretenses,
Hogue scored a $15,000 academic scholarship to Princeton (offered,
unwittingly, while Hogue was still serving time). Director Jesse Moss
wittily cuts together a black-and-white Princeton promotional film,
tapes of interrogations of Hogue, and interviews of Hogue's knackered
marks, all on the way to the main event: a successful search for the
elusive Hogue himself. The constantly repeated chorus? "He was
different." He remains incomprehensible, even to himself. Highly
recommended.

Making Arrangements (screens 3/5, 3/8): With impressive
verisimilitude, Making Arrangements details a weekend in the life
of an upscale flower shop. Director Melissa Scaramucci helmed this
mockumentary over 17 days in Oklahoma City, and while she's credited
with the screenplay, the feel is decidedly improvisational. The
documentary style affords a cinematographic simplicity that meshes well
with an indie budget. The film's great strength is contrasting the
imperfectly functional family of the flower shop to the harridan-like
clients who make their life so difficult. In the film's most
distinguished moment, Scaramucci lends the wackiness weight by lingering
on a client--whose high-strung demands have previously served for comic
relief--as she quietly weeps over the failure of her life to live up to
her fantasy ideal. The staff habitually scolds their clients behind
their backs: "It's just flowers," but the joke's on these
perfectionists, who secretly do live for their art. Recommended.

The Flats (screens 3/6, 3/7, 3/8): A rare low-key indie that,
with quiet smarts and no showy pretense, makes a genuine audience
connection. The Flats isn't brilliant, a classic, or even
terribly original, but it's never clumsy. In fact, it's compulsively
watchable with many quiet pleasures, chief among them a limber
performance by Chad Lindberg (who you may recall from The Fast and
the Furious or The Rookie). Lindberg's central character of
Harper is a spontaneous, unihibited clown, an alcoholic dropout, and
simultaneously charismatic and repellent. Favorably reminiscent of
recent films 25th Hour and All the Real Girls, The
Flats finds Harper facing a six-month jail term for an
alcohol-soaked run-in with the cops. Harper bristles while he waits for
his appointed incarceration day. As he considers jumping bail, Harper
begins to messily fall for his best friend's girl, Paige (Jade Herrera).
She's enough to make him consider abandoning his womanizing ways and
walking the straight and narrow. With impressive production values (and
particularly lovely photography), The Flats depicts small-town
Northwestern life with a surprisingly sensitive touch. Recommended.